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Tuesday, 11 May 2010

for it is Spring!

I've just finished reading 73 poems by e.e.cummings, a collection of, well 73 of his poems. Some of his most pared down poems are irritating and can seem pointless but at its best his poetry is like a fine mind altering drug that makes you see language and reality in different ways. (Not that I use mind altering drugs!). This is a collection that in part overflows with the joy of Spring, as demonstrated by this snippet from poem 63:

o-p-e-n-i-n-g

are(leaves;flowers)dreams

,come quicklycomerun runwith me nowjump shout(laughdance cry

sing)for it's Spring

-irrevocably;and in earth sky treeseverywhere a miracle arrives

(yes)

A wonderful shout of joy for the season that seems not to be able to arrive quite properly this year. Reading this collection, I was also struck that some of the weirdness of cummings' writing may be due to him internalising and using the rhythms of other languages, there are certainly passages that made more sense to me if I imagined they were in German. But anyway, a wonderful read if you don't mind working a little.

15 comments:

What a wonderful snippet! I'll have to start translating his poetry into German, too. One of my favorite things to do during my days at the University (long, long ago), was to translate German poetry into English.:0)I had completely forgotten about that. Thanks for reminding me!

I'd forgotten about e.e. in my humdrum life, and that was nice. Even nicer, however, are your photos of the garden, the flowers and best of all, your drawing. You should draw something for us every post!

I have to say I admire your tenacity. Every now and again I pick up his selected Poems 1923-1958 and read till I can take it no more. Some I instantly love, some make me feel sea sick, but I rarely manage more than about four or five and that might take a whole evening. Afterwards I always feel like I've been in conversation with a very drunk philosopher.

I suppose for some he is a bit of an acquired taste, but I've always found him so interesting and unique. Mind you, I haven't immersed myself in his writings the way you have just done. I also love the way he bends and plays with punctuation, making it part of the poem somehow.

Whoa - it was that guy and Lawrence Ferlinghetti (Coney Island of the Mind) that made me realize that poetry is supposed to be quite different from just rhymned narration. (eg..Mary had a little lamb, ..)

Have a wonderful time at your launch today, I really wish I lived closer and could come.

I feel silly even saying this but feel I do not 'understand' much poetry. I couldn't really fathom the Cummings poem... oh dear. I've got a bit of paper with an english a-level somewhere but feel like it was a long time ago.

juliet, I used to get soo impatient with cummings and then i read the biography of kenneth patchen who is one of my all time greats and they were best of friends and I had a new respect for cummings, because if patchen loved him, i would have to give him a chance at maybe liking him. And when mind is open, well, all sorts of stuff floats in like a tiny balloon man and well, Spring! and yr right, there's a lot of his stuff that seems over-worked and not good poetry, but when he hits tha mark, he hits it hard. i like (and i'll have to paraphrase because i can't memorize my kids' s.s.# to save their lives,) "Buddha told him. Confuscious told him, Jesus told him, but it took a really big stick to really tell him.." just cracks me up. My fifth year english teacher gave us that one and it just cracked me up. i started reading cummings like there was no tomorrow while some ididn't like, for the most part, he's one of the best...